Adineta cf. grandis Murray, 1910

LUKASHANETS, Dzmitry A., VEZHNAVETS, Vasily V., MAYSAK, Natalia N., HIHINIAK 1, Yury H., BORODIN, Oleg I., MIAMIN, Vladislav Ye., GAIDASHOV, Alexey A. & NIKITIUK, Leonid A., 2019, Rotifers (Rotifera) from the inland waters and terrestrial habitats of East Antarctic oases (Enderby Land and Prydz Bay), Fragmenta Faunistica 62 (2), pp. 67-86 : 72

Adineta cf. grandis Murray, 1910

( Fig. 3A )

Adineta grandis Murray, 1910: 51 – Dartnall & Hollowday 1985: 33, Donner 1965: 273, Kutikova 2005: 275, Iakovenko et al. 2015: 20

Notes. The following traits of A. grandis we considered as specific for the species: (1) vivacity and (2) very large sizes of the body (up to 500 µm and even higher) and trophi (up to 30 µm). Hundreds of such individuals (up to approximately 800 per 100 mg of substrate) that had other features of A. grandis i.e. colored in orange, reddish or brownish, relatively short foot, rostrum lamella divided in two lobes ( Fig. 3A1–4 ) were found in dry organic sediments. It is worth noting that the obtained body measurements for A. grandis strongly coincide with data from a completely different location of Antarctica – Cape Royds (type locality) and Antarctic Peninsula. Absolutely all ratio indices were within the range indicated for A. grandis from other regions ( Table 2 ). All this supports the unambiguity of this identification; still the cryptic species A. fontanetoi Iakovenko et al., 2015 should not be excluded. This species has the same external morphology as A. grandis and the differences may be found only at the molecular level or in slightly larger sizes of trophi. In this way, we have no choice except to consider this species as A. cf. grandis .

Figures

Fig. 3. Rotifers of Bdelloidea subclass. A – Adineta cf. grandis Murray, 1910: A1 – dorsal view, A2 – head, A3 – fragment of head of the pressed specimen, A4 – masticatory apparatus. B – Philodina gregaria Murray, 1910: B1 – lateral view, B2 – dorsal view of the pressed specimen, B3 – dorsal view of the pressed specimen with semi-spread corona, B4 – three embryos from one maternal specimen, B5 – masticatory apparatus. C – Adineta cf. vaga vaga (Davis, 1873). D – Adineta steineri Bartoš, 1951. E, F – Unidentified bdelloid rotifers in contracted shape (examples); mtu – major teeth in unci; rl – rostrum lamella; rt – rake teeth; fi – fingers; tr – trophi.

Fig. 1. Study sites. A – The location of study areas on the map of Antarctica; B – The area of ‘Vecherniaya Mount’ field base (field base (Thala Hills oasis); D – The area of ‘Druzhniy–4’ field base; E – The area of ‘Progress’ station (Larsemann Hills oasis are in gray.

Fig. 2. Examples of studied habitats. A – Meltwater pond. B – Lichen fouling. C – Algae Prasiola crispa.

Fig. 4. Rotifers of Monogononta subclass. A – Cephalodella forficata (Ehrenberg, 1832); B – Collotheca ornata (Ehrenberg, 1832); C – Epiphanes senta (Müller, 1773); D – Lepadella patella (Müller, 1773); E – Notholca verae Kutikova, 1958; F – Resticula gelida (Harring & Myers, 1924).